The Seventh Thing
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: Seven drabbles, for the seven reasons Rodolphus hates his wife. Written for CalculusWasTough's Seventh Thing Competition on the HPFC forum.
1. You're Vain

Author's Notes: Written for CalculusWasTough's Seventh Thing Competition on the HPFC forum.

Largely unrequited Belladolphus drabbles. (I've been in such a drabbly mood lately!)

Enjoy!

* * *

_You're Vain_

)O(

"We're going to be late to the meeting, Bellatrix," Rodolphus told her. He was already armed and prepared for the Death Eater meeting, for whatever tasks lay ahead of them, and Bellatrix was still glued to her mirror, arranging her hair to perfection.

She ignored him.

"You look fine. Can't you hurry up? The Dark Lord will be angry if we're late." Rodolphus didn't fancy the idea of suffering at the Dark Lord's hands for Bellatrix's obsession with looking pretty.

"The Dark Lord will be just as angry if I turn up looking like a mess," Bellatrix told him haughtily. "Just because he doesn't pay enough attention to you to know whether you look decent or not…"

Rodolphus gritted his teeth and looked away from her. She might make at least a little effort to pretend shame. But no. She felt no shame. She just looked at herself in the mirror and sighed dreamily.

"I really do look lovely," she said, preening, and acting as though Rodolphus couldn't hear her. "It's no wonder the Dark Lord favours me so."

"No wonder at all," Rodolphus agreed bitterly.


	2. Your Games

_Your Games_

)O(

"You've been out all night."

"I have not."

"Yes you have. It's almost sunrise."

"Almost. Not quite. So I have not been out all night. Now stop whining at me, Rod."

"This isn't fair. I don't like it when you play these games with me."

"What games?"

"_These ones_, Bellatrix! You spending almost the whole night out, pretending like it's not important! Do you think I don't know where you're spending your time? Do you think I don't know you're with the Dark Lord? Do you think that doesn't, I don't know, _bother_ me?"

Bellatrix held Rodolphus's eyes for a long minute, then snickered. "I know it bothers you, husband. But do you really think that makes a difference to me?"


	3. You're Insecure

_You're Insecure_

)O(

Even after Bellatrix spoke and behaved so horribly to him, Rodolphus, for reasons he did not understand, was still her only source of comfort. When the Dark Lord mocked her, was cruel to her, sent her home early for failing to please him, Bellatrix would crawl into her husband's arms and cry into his shoulder and ask if there was something wrong with her. And Rodolphus, fool that he was, would reassure her that there was nothing wrong with her, nothing at all, the Dark Lord simply did not understand her, did not love her the way he did–

As soon as words to that effect left his mouth, Bellatrix's insecurities vanished, and she went back to scorning him.

He didn't know which was worse – when she cried for the man who would never love her, or when she mocked the man who did.


	4. You Love Me, You Like Him

Sometimes, he thought she would say things simply to confuse him. She would go on and on about the Dark Lord and how glorious he was as she prepared to go out and meet him, then, on her way out the door, she would turn around to Rodolphus, who had been watching her prepare.

"Love you, Rod," she would say, as though she said it every day, then she would hurry out, leaving her husband as confused as it was possible to be. By the time he managed to wrap his head around what she had told him, she was always long gone.


	5. You Make Me Laugh, You Make Me Cry

_You make me laugh, you make me cry_

)O(

Once in a while, they would get to talking, and almost get along. Bellatrix was good company when she wasn't being horribly spiteful towards him, and Rodolphus learned to enjoy her biting wit, laughing at her often-cruel jokes. It was easy to laugh with her at the expense of others.

"Lucius Malfoy," she would say, "would do well to stop making my sister look masculine in comparison." And Rodolphus would laugh.

"Rabastan may be brainy," she would say, "but he seems to have forgotten he's supposed to be able to use his body as well." And Rodolphus would laugh.

"Rodolphus," she would say, "you are the most pathetic excuse for a man this world has ever seen."

And Rodolphus would cry.


	6. Your Friends

_Your Friends_

)O(

Rodolphus had thought that leaving Bellatrix and Narcissa alone while he got some work done would be all right. Bellatrix wouldn't be slipping off to the Dark Lord's chambers with her sister around. After all, Narcissa, ever modest, even prudish, would not approve of her going to the Dark Lord the instant Rodolphus left the room.

When he returned, he heard the women laughing happily. He paused and listened through the door, pleased to hear his wife wounding so happy.

"Lucius," Narcissa laughed, her voice slurred slightly by the wine they had been drinking, "is so vain that he cannot leave the house without brushing his hair at least one hundred times." The women laughed.

"Lucius may be vain," Bellatrix replied, "but Rodolphus… Rodolphus is so weak that he can't even bring himself to tell me off for sleeping with the Dark Lord."

Their gales of laughter made Rodolphus sick.


	7. The Seventh Thing

_And the Seventh Thing I Hate the Most that You Do…_

)O(

"God _damnit_, Rodolphus!" Bellatrix shrieked, picking a book up off the table and hurling it at her husband out of sheer anger. "I hate you! I hate you!"

Rodolphus cowered away from his wife, tears burning in his eyes. "_Why_?"

"Why do I hate you? _Why do I hate you_? That's the wrong bloody question, Rodolphus!" Bellatrix threw a curse, missing Rodolphus by inches. "The real question is _why don't you hate me?_"

As her spells rained down on him, sending him sprawling on the ground, tears poured down Rodolphus's face. Why _didn't_ he hate her? He had more than enough reason to. She was so cruel to him.

But he couldn't.

And that was what he hated most about her.

She made him love her.

)O(

_Fin_


End file.
